Building collaboration skills today means building global collaboration skills. Educators have their work cut out for them

It’s one thing for today’s students to connect with the world and to
appreciate the diversity and significance of potential interactions
through everyday, real-time interaction. It is a whole different
challenge to be able to collaborate with learning partners across town —
or around the world.The latter, in truth, is what all educators and learners should be
aspiring toward, but the reality is you cannot run before you can walk.
Unless educators understand and experience the power of using digital
technologies for online collaboration in a local context first, it is
likely that jumping head-first into global contexts — with its myriad
challenges — will not be successful.Emerging approaches to digital scholarship question what knowledge
is, how it is gained, and how it is shared. Digital technology provides
for differentiation, accountability, and visibility in the learning
process. For collaborative learning, the internet provides the platform
for engaged learning, deeper understanding, and some exciting outcomes.

What does that mean for today’s student? In practical terms, it means
collaboration can take on a whole new persona. Collaboration as an
inquiry-based, higher-order-thinking and problem-solving skill is now
just as possible virtually as it is face to face, and online
collaboration, by its very nature, implies synchronous as well as
asynchronous working modes. In other words, if logistics are accounted
for, students can Skype with peers in Hong Kong or trade private
messages to them with equal ease. As educators, we need to understand
this paradigm shift and know how to bring digital collaboration into the
learning environment.

Attributes of online global collaboration

Learning does not happen in isolation. Learning is social, and
individual creation can, or more pointedly should, become collaborative
creation in many instances. Students develop understanding about the
world through working together with others, by sharing ideas and
outcomes. As global educators, we need to consider how to bring online
collaboration into our learning environment. We also need to understand
how to go beyond synchronous to also support asynchronous online
collaborations. This involves embracing new pedagogies and new
pedagogical capacity, namely a teacher’s repertoire of teaching
strategies and partnerships for learning. We can always learn about something; however, the goal for online (leading to global) collaboration is to learn with others, and to build understanding together.

Definition: Online global collaboration broadly refers
to geographically dispersed educators, classrooms, and schools that use
online learning environments and digital technologies to learn with
others beyond their immediate environment in order to support curricular
objectives, intercultural understandings, critical thinking, personal
and social capabilities, and ICT capabilities.

What skills should a global educator have?

True online global collaboration takes place when students with
different cultures and points of view gather information and co-create
artifacts together, building knowledge and sharing with the world.
Schools that foster this type of learning must have:

Engaged, connected, and digitally fluent educators who know how to communicate using Web 2.0 and other online tools

Carefully planned and designed global collaborations that are
implemented and managed with a view to effectively join classrooms
together to enhance learning and support co-created outcomes

Common assessment objectives between global partners

High expectations and requirements for connectivity, contribution and collaboration on educators and students

Community partners who provide new knowledge, skills and resources for the online learning community

Multimedia savvy to pitch ideas to solve real-world problems

Educator or student initiated themes and student-managed learning

Student autonomy in learning, and an ability to initiate online collaborations

Online publishing and sharing modes that make use of Web 2.0 platforms and social media.

Educators who participate in online global collaboration need
professional support in understanding how to build engaging and
successful relationships with others at a distance so that deeper global
learning is realized. Online global collaboration features a number of
typical or usual behaviors and actions, called norms, that are found in
both synchronous and asynchronous modes. As a global educator and
education leader, following these eight norms will likely ensure
successful collaborations.

The eight norms of online global collaboration

Be Prepared (connect, communicate)

Have a Purpose

Be able to Paraphrase

Be able to Perceive

Make sure you Participate

Be Positive

Be Productive

Realize the Potential

Be productiveProductivity is a critically important norm. What did you actually
produce during this collaboration? Where is the evidence? Consider as
part of the global collaboration design what the outcomes will be and
work toward this. Consider also making these outcomes visible to others,
and if possible making the process visible as well.As part of the productivity, develop an understanding of what
co-creations are possible between learners and how this could be
implemented. Then encourage collaborators to work toward this. It could
be a co-created statement or document that all students have contributed
to, or perhaps a perhaps a piece of multimedia that students
contributed to in different ways. Or maybe it’s a co-hosted online
summit, or something quite new.

This norm homes in on collaboration and shares essential practices
while learning globally online. A well-designed online global
collaboration is about flattened learning and creating something to
share and/or co-creating artifacts between students and classrooms.Productivity means you:

Collaborate and share information and ideas

Create outcomes to share and encourage responses

Make outcomes visible to the outside world

Encourage students to compare, contrast, reflect

Aim to build knowledge together and co-create artifacts

When developing projects for global collaboration, consider these guiding questions:

How will participants collaborate and share information?

Both synchronous (in real time such as Skype) and asynchronous (such
as a Wiki) must be considered depending on time zone factors

Read about how 'flat' learning, digital technology and innovative leadership support online global learning and collaboration. The first of two blog posts featuring concepts from the new book 'The Global Educator: Leveraging technology for collaborative learning and teaching' by Julie Lindsay

Since 2005, New Global Citizens has worked with thousands of students on hundreds of grassroots, community-driven initiatives to achieve one goal: activate individuals as global citizens. With its classroom, after-school and community-based programs, NGC has been equipping young people with the mindset, skills, empathy and passion to collaborate, think big and create partnerships across borders to help solve global issues.

The 2016 Horizon Project K-12 expert panel has completed voting for the 2016 NMC Horizon Report > K-12 Edition and the topics have been selected. The six key trends, six significant challenges, and six important developments in education technology below will be featured in this year's report to be released this September. The project and resulting report is a collaboration with CoSN and made possible by Share Fair Nation under a grant from the Morgridge Family Foundation.We are now looking for projects, policies, and leadership initiatives that reflect these topics in action. Submit your exemplary work at http://go.nmc.org/projects. View definitions and discussions of all of the final topics on the 2016 Horizon Project K-12 Wiki or download the official free preview (PDF) for brief definitions.

Sunday, June 12, 2016

The 2016 NMC Technology Outlook for Australian Tertiary Education: A Horizon Project Regional Report reflects a collaborative research effort between the New Media Consortium (NMC) and Open Universities Australia to inform Australian campus leaders and decision-makers about significant developments in technologies supporting teaching, learning, and creative inquiry in tertiary education across the continent. The expert panel identified 9 key trends, 9 significant challenges, and 12 important developments in educational technology.

Are we giving young people the best chance of success and happiness in a changing economy and society?
How is our future - and indeed our present - unlike the past?
How can we shape an education for every student that engages them deeply in their learning and prepares them for the world beyond school?
The case for change animation and slide deck have been developed to support school leaders and teachers to engage in a discussion with colleagues, parents, students and the broader community about how we can best engage, challenge and support students in their learning.

The Design Thinking toolkit is designed to guide you through the process of implementing Design Thinking in your school. If you are a school leader, you may like to use this toolkit with your whole staff as a strategy for change within the school or you may choose to work with particular teams around a pre-determined focus issue. It can be used by teachers, either working with a group or individually, as a strategy for approaching a particular issue either within their own classroom or as part of a team within the school.